Sunday, February 10, 2013

One of the daily rituals I would like to develop with Amani is prayer. I don't pray very regularly now, but I used to, and I think I could totally get into it. For one thing, I am very susceptible to suggestion. I am definitely one of those people who starts exhibiting symptoms of a disease the very minute I hear about it. If I see a film wherein a main character is being followed by ghosts or something, I begin to feel like maybe I am being followed by ghosts. I am pretty sure that if my thriftiness did not override almost every other impulse I have ever had, my entire home would be filled to the brim with Sham Wows and Ginsu knives.

When I was pregnant with Amani, I tried Hypnobabies, this method of practicing relaxing thought patterns and breathing techniques with the goal of having a more relaxed and confident birth process. The bulk of the training was listening to these recordings of this woman's almost excessively soothing hippie voice repeating affirming mantras. Man, I loved those things.

"My pregnant body is strong and beautiful."

"My baby is growing stronger each day."

I would listen to them ALL the time: before bed, in the car, while I was grocery shopping; all the time!

"I am looking forward to a happy, healthy birthing process."

Then, even when I wasn't listening to the recordings, I would find myself repeating the little mantras to myself.

Then all of a sudden, I totally got prayer. You stick with that stuff long enough and eventually are going to influence who you are. I mean, there is more to prayer than that for a lot of people: it can be a way to reflect on your choices, and foster community. It can just be a time for peace for a restless mind; I am still kind of working on what it means to me, but the mantras idea is something I can very much get behind.